New Zealander Chris Steele has held his nerve and successfully defended his Musto International Youth Match Racing Championship title, defeating American Christophe Killian 3-0 in the grand final.

Steele, and his crew of Connor Mashlan, Dylan Wichman and George Brasell representing Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, dropped one match throughout the entire regatta, which was hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia and contested on the fleet of Elliott 7s.

Stating at the beginning of the week, he wanted to finish his youth match racing career on a high, Steele was ecstatic to have achieved his goal.

“It’s great to have defended the title,” Steele said. “I’ve had six podium finishes in ten events and we’ve won the last two - finally!”

The win wasn’t easy for Steele – he had to tough it out with CYCA’s Harry Price in the semi-final sail-off. “It was a tough first race of the day. We inflicted a penalty on him in the pre-start and the first beat was very tight – lots of lee bow tacks plus a few dial downs.

“We managed to bounce him out to the port lay line and rounded the top mark four to five boat lengths in front of him and then had to fight the rest of the race to keep the lead. It really was worthy of a grand final match,” Steele added